


a heap of images

by hashire



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Arranged Marriage, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Pining, RivaMika Week, Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:21:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22102489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hashire/pseuds/hashire
Summary: Entries for the Rivamika Week - All-Time Favorite Tropes.
Relationships: Mikasa Ackerman/Levi
Comments: 18
Kudos: 47





	1. fake relatioship

“Look up.” Those two words send a chill up her spine. She doesn’t even have to look away from the drink she’s stirring to know.

It’s a setup. It has to be. Mikasa can’t imagine any other reason why mistletoe would be placed over the drink counter.

“What now?” she says in a low voice, as low as she can muster in her sudden panic. They had been doing this fake thing for months: limiting PDA to simple touches, the occasional arm around her shoulder when they were sat next to each other, a kiss on the cheek when she felt she had to. It was made up, all of it (and if she thought about what it might be like late at night, that was irrelevant). Social pressure and parental concern led them to where they were.

“We have to,” Levi says, and she finally meets his eyes. It sounds like he wants to, like it’s not an action to appease all of their friends who are eagerly watching and waiting. The light in his eyes tells her the same.

“Oh,” is all she can get out before their lips meet, thinking that maybe this isn’t as fake as they pretended it was.


	2. hurt/comfort

It’s been three days, seventeen hours, and twenty-one minutes since Eren died. She’s not making a conscious effort to think about it. It’s not like she even had any sort of timepiece around to check the time when it happened. Still, it’s burned into her brain, and, every time she pauses for a breath, she’s reminded of it.

Four days, two hours, and twelve minutes after Eren died, she finds herself at Historia’s countryside home. The queen is laid up in bed, in labor, listening to the news of what happened in between contractions. Mikasa helps deliver the little boy. He screams in her face as soon as his airway is cleared. 

Five days, six hours, and fifty-eight minutes after Eren died, Hange and Levi arrived. Hange looks haggard, bruised, but Levi is overwhelmingly worse. There’s no time for an explanation for why they came here. Their clothes drip onto the wood floors, and Levi loses consciousness shortly after arrival. Not even the baby’s cries are enough to wake him up.

Six days, twelve hours, and forty-two minutes after Eren died, Historia is doing poorly following the labor, Hange has departed (citing clean-up and other things needed to be done), and Levi’s wounds are bandaged. Mikasa has barely slept and dozes off next to the bed where Levi lies.

Seven days, twenty-three hours, and one minute after Eren died, she wakes up and bursts into tears. There’s no specific catalyst at this point. She sobs into the linens on Levi’s bed, doesn’t react when a hand rests itself on her head. It takes his right hand - two-fingered, one-thumbed - touching her cheek to pull her out of it.

Seven days, twenty-three hours, and ten minutes after Eren died, she looks at his bandaged face and, even though he can’t see her with one dead eye and the other covered, she takes a breath, accepts his hand, and almost smiles.


	3. enemies to lovers

The burgeoning crowd cheers as their lances meet and splinter. The meeting has been anticipated throughout the land as they heard of the two great sons of Ackerman. Neither had ever been bested in a joust, both nary breaking a sweat during the event. 

Mikasa unsheathes the sword strapped to her back, meeting Levi’s in such a fierce clash that sparks fly. She grits her teeth, pushing with all her might, trying to unhorse him and failing. He withdraws to strike with a perfect overhead arc. She parries it with ease, sending weapon flying out of his hands with the force of her defense. His horse takes a few steps to the side, not spooked but affected by her strength.

He does not back down, does not even pause as he pulls another sword from his hip. She looks away for nary a second to find her blade bent from the previous engagements. It’s a second too long as he uses her distraction to charge. Her sword breaks when she blocks. He leans back, ready to go for the final blow, when she uses the leverage of her height to give him a swift kick to the jaw. It catches him by surprise, knocking him off balance. She grabs the blade, uncaring of how it slices her skin and using it to finally unhorse him. She lets go of his sword to draw hers, pointing it at him and smiling in triumph.

Sweat trickles down her brow as she gasps for breath. He is similarly winded, chest rising and falling. Then, for truly the first time, their eyes meet. She sees something in the blue of them that she’s never encountered before. The emotion changes when he registers something in her gaze. The moment is lost when the crowd gathers around her, patting her legs in praise and shouting with vigor. 

The villagers offer Mikasa all the food she desires and, after, many rooms for her to stay. She declines the lodgings, citing a need to leave immediately, even before her hand has been properly bandaged. None of them know that she is a woman, and she does not intend to reveal that in this place.

She finds a rushing river off the path out, riding along it until she feels like she’s far enough away from the villagers and in a dense enough part of the forest that other travelers would have to be seeking her to find her.

Her hand bleeds as she unarms herself once more, removing her helmet and armor with much less care than normal. She winces as she dips her hand into the water to clean it again. Blood seeps through the rags she tears from her tunic. It will have to do until she can find someone to properly dress it.

“The wound that allowed your win may cost you much more in the end.” The deep voice startles her from where she had been tying the makeshift bandage in admittedly sloppy knots. Her hand clenches as she stiffens and reaches for her new sword, only to find it not at her side. Unarming could lead to her death.

“It’s nothing more than a scratch,” she snaps, throwing her head back to look at him. Levi sits upon his horse, high above her kneeling position. Horror spreads through her, muting the throbbing pain, when his eyes stray lower. She claps her bloody hand to the top of her tunic. She knows it is too late, however, by the small smile that curls the corner of his lips.

“A scratch killed my uncle,” he says, dismounting. “Kenny, another descendent of Ackerman. The wound festered and blackened, and he was dead within a week.” His horse walks over to the stream after he pulls something from his pack. “And it wasn’t even on his sword-wielding hand.”

“What do you want?” Levi pauses, raising an eyebrow before continuing to advance on her. Mikasa has only felt so vulnerable once in her life, even though she’s sure she can find an advantage: she exceeds him in height, after all. 

“I’m going to properly dress your hand,” he says, as though she should have known that already. “So we can fight again. Would be a terrible loss if you were unable to do so because of stubbornly denying care.” 

She stays tense as he kneels before her. He coaxes her hand from her chest, loosening the sodden cloth from it. She looks down, and there is blood on her tunic as well. She will have to remove it later. She has experience with blood stains: multiple kinds, of course.

He produces a needle and thread from his pack and stitches up the wounds with efficiency. It hurts the entire time, though she finds herself distracted. He has a solemn face when concentrating, but an attractive one. Rarely did she hear of him as anything other than stern and intimidating. She flushes when he catches her staring, turning her head away. She hears shuffling and realizes that her hand is no longer supported by a smaller, rougher one.

“What do you ask in return?” Mikasa shifts to watch the river flow. The noise of him putting his tools away stops.

“I want to fight you again. That is all.” 

“No,” she says, turning back. “You have found my secret. What do you want in exchange for promising to keep it?”

Levi looks at her for a long time. “Nothing.” Her face must reflect her disbelief. “I knew when I first saw you. Other people are still fooled, but not I.”

She inhales so quickly that she almost chokes. She coughs and coughs and embarrassment spreads throughout her body. She considers trying to grab all of her things in one motion and rushing off, but she wouldn’t have time to arm herself again and - the thought ends when that same battled-roughened hand reaches to brush a bit of hair out of her face.

The vulnerable feeling returns in a different form as she meets his eyes: one that makes her heart jump into her throat, her guts curl in on themselves, her skin prickle. She recognizes the look from the boys she knew at home. But Levi is not a boy. She can see it in the broad of his shoulders and the muscles visible under all of the armor.

“I should go,” he murmurs, barely audible over the noise of the river. He strokes her cheek, the barest whisper of a touch, before he stands.

He’s two steps away when she bolts upright and calls out, “Wait!” He stops and looks over his shoulders. Swallowing the lump in her throat, Mikasa grabs the hem of her tunic and pulls it over her head, baring her upper body to him. “I’ll need help washing my tunic.” 

Levi’s expression shifts between emotions so rapidly that she can’t pinpoint any of them. She sees him swallow - just as she did - and then nods. “You do only have one good hand.”


	4. arranged marriage

Mikasa traces the intricate designs at the top of the silk chemise and feels terribly out of space. The bed she sits on is soft, the sheets luxurious, and here she is, a farm girl who had no intentions of marrying rich. 

She learned of him as a young girl from her mother: a strong young man some years her senior who climbed the ranks in society to the point that perhaps their match was unsuitable. Surely his family would prefer that he married someone of equal standing (which they used to be, when she was a child). She asked her mother about it once, when she turned fourteen and bled for the first time: when she was supposed to meet him for the first time.

Her dear mother looked uncomfortable but said nothing more than, “We’ve heard nothing from his family to indicate that he is no longer interested.” When Mikasa pressed, her mother confessed that the photos they had been taking of her yearly were being sent along to his family. She only corresponded with his mother, who always said he looked forward to meeting her but postposned it each time.

And so, she is here four years after that revelation after an uncomfortably lavish wedding, knowing of the whispers and gossip flying behind her back. ‘She must be pregnant,’ ‘he’s doing it out of pity,’ ‘what does he see in her?’ The last was drenched in jealousy, yet she, too, wonders. Still, they must not have known of the arrangment to be saying such things. She wasn’t about to reveal it, though.

Mikasa twists the hem of the chemise at the sound of footsteps. Her mother spoke to her about what would happen on this night: the consummation, she called it.

The door opens before her mind can dip further into those thoughts. She rises to meet him, but he gestures for her to sit back down. He’s still wearing his suit from the wedding, which he starts to remove with precise and methodical movements. She looks away when he strips down completely, an odd feeling welling up in her throat.

“Husband,” she calls, but she’s cut off by a voice much closer to her than she anticipated.

“Levi,” he says, flipping back the sheets to climb into bed.

“Levi,” she repeats after a pause. “Are we…” The words refuse to come. He touches her shoulder. She doesn’t jump like she thought she might. She recalls the kiss he gave her when they were pronounced husband and wife: soft, careful, allowing her to lead. She swallows the uncertainy down as she turns to him.

“Only if you want to,” he says, expression unreadable: now; perhaps, one day, she would, and that thought brings a craving that goes deep into her bones. She looks at him, in his plain pajamas and smoothed back hair.

“I do,” she says for the second time that day, almost falling over as she reaches over to kiss him.


	5. coffee au

Levi learns that it is secretly part of orientation to have a new recruit approach him and ask why he buys an Americano every morning only to dump it in the sink and make tea. The withering glare and assignment of more work allows them to get a stronger start than they might otherwise have. Erwin tells him this one day after he demands to know why the new kid was high fived following their exchange.

“I think it helps them,” Erwin says, with one of those smiles on his face. Levi narrows his eyes behind his tea. “Gets them used to how things work around here.” He leans back in his chair. “So, how is she?”

The narrowed eyes turn into a full-blown glare like earlier. He’s the only one who knows why Levi has this habit.

(The beautiful young woman behind the counter told him they didn’t have tea the first day the coffeeshop opened. He had been annoyed and perhaps took it out on her too much. The old shop that this one replaced had a huge tea selection. Why did they fuck that up with just having this coffee shit? Is something like what he said, probably. He can’t quite remember, nor her answer, because he was distracted by the smile that then lit up her face when someone else walked in.)

“She wasn’t there today.” And the blond-haired young man who served him gave him such odd looks throughout the process. He still isn’t sure what to make of it. 

“Are you ever going to say something?” Erwin asks behind steepled fingers. Erwin, who is single as fuck and awkward on top of it, is always ready to give him advice.

“No, I’m going to spend my life savings on these shitty drinks and get old. Have you ever tasted that shit? It’s fucking awful.” Erwin just laughs.

“You know, there is a tea shop opening down the street soon.”

“No shit. I walk past the building every day.” Levi stands, because he has work to do and knows where this is going. He knows there is a smile pointed at his back as he walks out the door. He pauses, hand on the knob. “And I’d do it if it didn’t make me look like a fucking creeper. What kind of asshole asks out someone who can’t walk away?”

“It worked for Nile!” is what he hears before the door closes. As though he would want to be like Nile.


	6. pining

It starts with a touch. He walks up to her during thunder spear training, adjusting the weapon on her arm. After tightening the metal cuffs on her forearm, he reaches to shift it up higher. It must have been out of concern from the misfired spear the previous week: the accident that led to her cutting her hair. He’s no stranger to doing things like this for the soldiers working under him. The thing is, he’s never done it for her because her form is perfect and everything she does is properly measured and precise. 

But this touch: it ignites in her something she’s never quite felt before. It’s electric, producing goosebumps all up her arms and a catch of breath in her throat. There’s a mild chill in the air, but, even if it weren’t there, she’s sure that the brush of his fingers would feel hot against the skin of her wrist. She wonders how a single touch can cause such a reaction (one that she never felt from anyone else...not even Eren). And surely it can’t be the first time it’s happened.

Late that night, however, she realizes that it was one of the few times that he had been so close to her. Even in the past, when walking side by side or near to each other, he always kept a respectful buffer between him and others (not just her). All of the Survey Corps begged to see them train together, to spar. Each time, he made an excuse for why he couldn’t. She may have and still did want to see if she could best him: regardless, his brushing off never bothered her much. It doesn’t now, either: not necessarily, at least. 

She stares at the ceiling through the darkness as Sasha snores in the nearby bed. Her hands lie one on top of the other on her stomach. She reaches to run fingertips over the spot, which fails to produce the same feeling as earlier. There’s no mark, nothing there to indicate that it even happened. And, ridiculously, she wishes there were. She twists her fingers together in a knot to try to settle herself down, to keep herself from touching it further.

She pays more attention to him after this: sidelong glances, looks from underneath her eyelashes when they eat, quickly aborted stares when there’s no one around. She tries to get close to him to see if she can maybe brush hands with him, if she can to graze a finger against him, if she can feel that feeling again. She’s never quite close enough, always moves away before it can happen.

And then she tamps down the feelings, shoves them deep inside of her, because she still feels strongly, fiercely for Eren. If she starts to question how deep those emotions go, she stops herself, chokes on the thoughts, hates it all. And when she looks at Eren and wonders if his touch might ever replicate the pleasant burn of Levi’s (wonders what is even going on in his head because she wants to feel like she understands him even though she isn’t sure anymore, which is entirely unrelated to this new questioning, but she still banishes the thoughts like the rest).

And then she ends up with Marley with Eren, with him alone during that dark night, where he challenges her to explain why she acted the way she had, what she truly feels for him. And she thinks of that touch, wonders what it could mean, stumbles over her answer of “You’re family,” and can’t be sure what she’s afraid of when she tells him that.

**Author's Note:**

> The last day for this week is a free day. I'm thinking about maybe continuing one of these and adding an additional trope to it. Thing is, I can't decide. Please let me know which one you'd like to see continued and what I should add.


End file.
